TrialNerd_Beth said:

They are not contradictory, they measure different things, and this is the single most common misreading of a certificate.

I am more sceptical of certificates as a category than this thread is. The document tells you about a sample somebody chose to send, at a moment in time, and nothing about the vial in your hand. Independent purchase-and-test is a different quality of evidence and everything else is inference.

sean_dublin said:

I have a certificate reporting 99.2% purity and 6.1mg content on a vial sold as 5mg, and I cannot work out whether those two numbers are consistent or…

HPLC results interpretation for certificates of analysis: when you get your Janoshik report back, here's what the numbers mean:

• Purity %: Should be >97%. Below 95% is concerning.
• Retention time: Should match reference standard for the peptide
• Related substances: Degradation products should be <2% total
• Single impurity: No individual impurity should exceed 1%

My last batch: 99.6% purity, 0.2% total related substances. Clean chromatogram with single sharp peak at expected retention time. Exactly what you want to see.

DebRD_ATL said:

I am more sceptical of certificates as a category than this thread is.

My vendor review relevant to certificates of analysis: ordered 4 times from my current compounder. Consistency has been excellent.

Shipping: 2-day priority with gel ice
Packaging: Professional, discreet, proper labeling with lot/batch numbers
Purity: 99.5% average across orders (Janoshik verified)
Customer service: Responsive within 4 hours
Price: $157/month for semaglutide 1.7mg equivalent

One thing that is still open after RetaRick_CA’s answer:

Whether a purity figure and a content figure can disagree without one of them being wrong?

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Purity and content being different measurements was the piece I was missing. The vial was overfilled and pure, which is a very different problem from the one I thought I had.